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Sarah

byRoger Rule

Book Cover & Preview Text

That night, Fred dreamt Goldie was placing a warm wet
compress between his legs and he awoke with an erection and a wet gooey stuff
all over his skivvies and on the sheets. He had masturbated before, but this
was the first time it had happened without effort. He looked around. He could
see no one had awaked, but the night was unusually dark. The water closet,
where the chamber pots and a bucket of water were kept, was about twenty-five
feet from his bed. He would have to go past six rows of beds without waking
anyone and embarrassing himself. He slipped out of his sheets and quietly
picked up his knickerbockers at the foot of the bed, then slowly, silently,
felt his way to the water closet walking as quiet as a cat.

When he finished cleaning himself, he put on the short pants
and went outside to take in some fresh air. His gum pained him from the new
missing tooth. With merely his light underwear shirt over his upper body, the
cool night San Franciscan air was uncomfortable. He decided to return to his
bed when he heard Al Bartholomew: “Psst, psst!”

Fred had never met Al, and would have taken him for a robber
or worse, but it was obvious the big guy was trying to get someone’s attention
inside the shelter, and nothing else, with Fred on his blindside.

Although Fred couldn’t see him well in the dark, Al was a
thickset kid, about an inch short of six feet and had muscular shoulders with a
heavy chest. At nineteen, his hairline was already receding. And though too
dark to notice, Fred would find out his most memorable features were his one
continuous eyebrow over his closely set eyes that gave him a perpetual mean
look ... like predators’ eyes ... unusual for his wide face. If his face were
narrower, no one would be surprised to see horns adorning his head.

Then Fred noticed two horses were tied under a tree about
twenty yards away from the building, inside the stone wall. Fred stood there,
out in the open in the dark, stationary, waiting. He watched while Al found
something at the perimeter of the garden about fifteen feet away, and dragged
it back to the building. Fred saw it was one of the garden sawhorses as Al
climbed onto it to reach the window of the building. The building was built on
piers over a crawlspace. Fred could see Al was a full-grown man, wearing a large
knife in a sheath, and he must be wearing spurs by the jingling sound, familiar
to Fred, as Al climbed into position. Then, when he was poised, Al tapped onto
the window: TAP, TAP--TAP,
TAP, TAP

“Who are you looking for?” said Fred.

“Jesus Christ!” yelled Al, jumping off the sawhorse and
trying to keep his balance while turning to see where the voice had come from.

At the end of the building, the door opened, the same door
Fred had used. Standing in the doorway was Fred’s friend, Tommy. Fred’s eyes
had adjusted to the dark well enough now and he could see Tommy was fully
dressed and rubbing his eyes. Tommy was a year younger than Fred, but a couple
of inches taller and wirier. When Tommy took his hands down from his eyes, Fred
could see he was holding his sheathed hunting knife, with its strap dangling
freely at his side.

“Where are you?” said Tommy, looking out blindly in the
dark.

“Who the hell are you?” said Al, directing his words
to Fred.

“My name’s Freddy.”

“That’s Freddy,” said Tommy. “He’s my friend. Hey, Freddy,
do you want to come with us?”

“Wait a minute,” said Al.

“It’s okay Albert, Freddy will be handy, he’s very
coordinated,” said Tommy.

“Well, the little bastard sure is sneaky enough,” said Al.
“We might be able to use three.”

Sarah Pardee Winchester grew up in New Haven, Connecticut
where she married William W. Winchester, son of the entrepreneur who founded
the Winchester rifle company, which became the largest gun company in the
world.At its peak, many members of the
Winchester family started dying: Sarah’s sister-in-law, her only child, her
father-in-law, and finally, her husband. Because of the succession, Sarah found
herself heir to the Winchester fortune.And because her lifespan exactly coincided with the popularity of
Spiritualism, Sarah went to a medium in Boston who told her that evil spirits,
killed by Winchester rifles, were murdering her family in revenge.Given advice to thwart them, she moved to
San Jose, California becoming an early feminist and creating a new life for
herself: one of eccentricity, romance, and intrigue, while overcoming powerful
forces against her.Because of her
beliefs, she truly felt that evil spirits surrounded her.Her fame drew a Victorian version of
paparazzi, one of which nearly killed her. She battled behind the scenes with
Theodore Roosevelt and local hypocrites; and was buried alive in the 1906 San
Andreas Earthquake. Even with all of this, she remained kind-hearted and sane.
Her home remains today as one of the largest Victorian mansions ever built.

About the Author

Although Roger Rule wrote his first book twenty years ago, Sarah
is his first novel.

Rule is a graduate of the University of Missouri and a
published author of authoritative books regarded as the reference source in
their respective fields.A recognized Winchester
expert, as well as a builder himself, he became interested in Sarah when first
touring the Winchester Mystery House in the seventies. About Sarah, he says,
“Researching and telling her story nearly became an obsession.”

After serving a short stint as an infantry airborne officer
in the U.S. Army, Rule became a real estate developer in California for
twenty-two years, where he reared his family and married his second wife,
Eileen. Mr. Rule is past president of seven companies and is acknowledged in Who’s
Who in California, Personalities of America, Who’s Who in Finance and Industry
in America, and International Businessmen’s Who’s Who.

In 1995, he moved toHawaii where one of his
companies now owns a large retirement facility in Kailua-Kona ... “Regency at
Hualalai.” Recently, he resumed his writing interests, writing screenplays,
business books, professional business plans for world-renown companies; and
most recently, this first novel.